Profiles in NBA Obscurity: Glossy Magazine Stories That Will Never Be Written, Vol. 1

The brightest stars of these NBA playoffs: yeah, we’re kind of sick of reading about them, too. There’s a reason Balls Out spends so much time harping on your Durants and your Westbrooks and your Nowitzkis—and no question, we will be parsing and praising and psychoanalyzing these guys for another month. But today—and why today? Because last night’s action was pretty dull, that’s why—we turn our gaze to the little guys. In tribute to the backups, the journeymen reserves and the veteran end-of-the-benchers, we present "Profiles in Obscurity"—the first two paragraphs of glossy-magazine articles about third-stringers for NBA playoff teams. In other words, stories that will never, ever be written. First up, the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Royal Ivey.

From "Royal Out Of Exile"

The car still starts. It is not the newest car in the players’ lot, and it’s certainly not the most expensive—in the high desert dusk, Royal Ivey’s 2002 BMW looks dusty and small and a little slump-shouldered there beside the proud, shiny, candy-colored Range Rovers and elegantly turned-out Maybachs. But there’s nothing to be ashamed of—this car has driven Ivey around the NBA, from Atlanta to Milwaukee to Philadelphia to Milwaukee again and finally to where he suits up now. That being Oklahoma City, the city where Ivey has continued to cement his status as the most important third-string point guard you’ve never thought about. Like Ivey, OKC is something of an afterthought—a city that was never supposed to have a NBA team, a city whose best restaurant is generally agreed to be a Golden Corral and whose zoo’s prime attraction, a chimp named Mwami, keeps escaping his enclosure, as if even he would rather be in Tulsa.

And yet here is Oklahoma City, and here is the Thunder—rolling across the great Midwest plains like clockwork after the weather has turned, but also, and more importantly, rolling through the Western Conference, rolling toward what looks a hell of a lot like a bright future. And here is Royal Ivey’s car, right where he left it. It doesn’t look like much, but when he turns the key, the engine turns over, the lights turn on and the old car moves. The car takes Ivey off the players’ lot, past the security guard—a wave, un-awed, and he turns his attention back to People magazine—toward the seven-year vet’s home, and back into an ordinary, extraordinary life...

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